Brain candy, Artists Go Digital

THIS year's crop of multimedia graduates from the Arthouse and FAS training scheme (the second such group) has collaborated on a CD ROM in what amounts to a digital graduation show.

The product, Pluperfect, is "loosely based around the idea of memory, a word which obviously has complex significance in the world of computing and digital culture, whether taken to mean the memory that does the computing work, the place in which information is stored, or the artists' wetware reminiscences.

The subject is a good one, for the questions of what we might want to store - in any format - or why we might ever want to retrieve it are open and substantial. Happily Pluperfect does not take the issue too seriously, and instead keeps its sorties into the world of information fairly random.

Following the plan for Marino Casino, the artists here have developed a series of interlinked chambers, stairways, gadgets, secret passages and even an interactive water glass xylophone. "There is no particular plot or set of narrative intentions", one text alerts us, "just some things to play with

Here, we are clearly in the realm of Myst, or Puppet Motel, rather than Marathon or Doom; taking a peaceable 3D stroll rather than wandering through a labyrinth of chainsaw mayhem.

Guided only by those aspects that seem immediately attractive, it is possible to explore the history of science, ideas of time (and therefore, presumably, memory), and read facsimile journals and telegrams as we move through the faintly spooky corridors.

The interface is pleasant and, for the most part, straightforward. There is, however, nothing in style or inventiveness that is very distinctive from a host of other ludic CD ROMs. As a kind of soothing play, a self acknowledged bit of brain candy, however, Pluperfect is a convincingly benign experience.